For several days I couldn’t seem to keep from thinking about poor old Lisa and her jealous husband and wondering whether or not they had made peace yet. It was a shame for them to have hard feelings, just because I happened to stop in to see my old nurse. I hoped Lisa told him the truth—if she hadn’t before I got to Le Mans again, he’d hear it from me.

I was hoping that the General might change his plans and go to Le Mans this trip—much as I wanted to see the Captain—because I had to see Leon soon and find out what kind of a game he thought he was playing. If he had left Le Mans, there would be no other way of proving to Pierre that I was not a regular soldier except by, well, some kind of a vulgar display: if Leon was still there when I got there, then it shouldn’t be very difficult to make the old buzzard believe our story.

Now, however, we were en route to Paris and I didn’t know what was going to happen. The General was very irritable and jumpy and complained of headaches and nervousness. I thought he was about ready to cave in—and if so, what would become of us?

A few days in Paris and I knew very well that General Backett was weakening under the strain. The doctors told him he ought to take a rest trip down to the South or over to England, but he positively refused. He finally had to give up work for a while and went to the hospital way over on the other side of the city from where Ben and I had to stay. I didn’t know what we would do with ourselves. He’d probably be there a couple of weeks anyway and there was nothing I could do, outside of a few routine things that didn’t amount to anything. Ben and I had to report to the Intelligence every day, just to satisfy some crazy regulation, but outside of that we had the time to ourselves. And it was just my luck that Captain Winstead was out of the city and wouldn’t return for two or three days yet.

The General didn’t have any more faith in Chilblaines, for he had him assigned to temporary duty at Intelligence. Of course, he couldn’t be of any help over there—no more help there than he was to the General—but the General wouldn’t think of intrusting any, even very routine, inspections to him and he had to do something with him. It was the same as a leave of absence.

Maybe we’d have the laugh on Chilblaines, though, for they were liable to put him to work over there, not because he was a good man, but because, when good officers are scarce, any officer at all must do. And good officers were scarce just now, due to the heavy activity all over the A.E.F.

I arranged to have flowers sent out to the General every day during his stay at the hospital. I didn’t tell Ben a word about the flowers, but next morning when we visited the General to pay our respects and see if there was anything we could do to make him more comfortable, the nurse told Ben the flowers had come from a florist’s and that the card had an enlisted man’s name on it. I might have known it.

As soon as we were outside again, he began. “Who in hell ever heard of enlisted men takin’ flowers to a General?” he demanded in disgust. “’Course we want the Gen. to be comfortable and happy—but let him stay there! We don’t want him to get well too fast—the longer he stays the more time we have for enjoyin’ the sights of this beautiful city!”

“Oh, we’ll have plenty of time,” I reassured him.

“Don’t make no difference,” he insisted. “Nobody ever heard of an enlisted man sendin’ flowers to a General! You must be crazy.... But what the hell do I care—it’s your funeral!”

I had to laugh.

“Now what the hell are ya laughin’ at?” he demanded. “’Course I gotta admit that some o’ the things you do sure are funny! Funny as hell! Sometimes ya act just like a woman!”

I continued to laugh at him, and it got his goat.

“What the hell are ya laughin’ at, ya little shrimp?” he exploded. “I’m the one that oughta laugh—I oughta laugh at you fer bein’ such a damn fool as to send flowers to a General! The joke’s on you, ya poor toad!” And he started to laugh.

Well, when he laughed, I had to laugh some more, and the more I laughed the harder he laughed. It developed into a contest and I was gasping for breath.

Finally he stopped long enough to say, “By Gosh, Leony, ya must have a good sense o’ humor to be able to laugh at a joke on yerself!” And he burst into a guffaw again.

I was doubled up by this time, but I managed to gasp out, “I’m not laughing at that, you big goof! I’m laughing because I put on all the cards to go with those flowers,

Now laugh that off!”

“What!” he demanded.

I repeated the text of the cards and added, “And I ordered flowers to be delivered every morning for the next ten days!”

“O God Almighty!” he groaned.

He couldn’t see anything to laugh at now.

War-time Paris was supposed to be rather a wild place, but so far we hadn’t struck anything very terrible. Perhaps we didn’t know where to look. Anyway, I got quite a kick out of taking Ben around and showing him the historic sights of the city. Nothing exciting about such things as famous “rues” and boulevards, cathedrals, theaters, parks and monuments, and Ben was obviously bored. We even went to see the railroad stations—that’s how hard up we were for something to do.

Ben’s idea of a good time would be to visit all the dives up Montmarte way, the House of Nations and peep-hole palaces that we’d heard so much about. When I got my courage screwed up, I intended to go with him on a tour of those joints. For the time being, though, stuff like that didn’t interest me: my education had gone along pretty fast and I wanted to save something for later. Not that seeing those things would hurt me—Lord knows, just looking at dirty things won’t soil anyone’s soul. I just didn’t see anything very interesting in the sights we’d probably see in those places.

Ben had heard all kinds of stories about some of these places. He told me some things that I just couldn’t believe. Ugh! I didn’t think they really did such things anywhere—and if I went to one of those joints it’d probably be out of curiosity, just to find out for sure whether they did or not. I was tired of hearing about impossible things and not knowing whether to believe or not. However, curiosity wouldn’t kill the kitty.

One day Ben and I were standing on the comer of two avenues, which Ben said no white man could name, wondering what we could do to kill a couple of hours, when a pretty little drably clad mademoiselle parked herself beside me and remained there until I paid attention to her.

I nudged Ben and said, “Here’s a chance for you, Ben.”

He looked her over and decided that she would suit his taste. “But she picked you out,” he objected. “Go ahead, Leony—she’s a cutie. I’ll mooch along and see you later.”

He started to do this very thing, but I caught his arm before he could take a step. “As you were, Gibraltar!” I commanded. “I don’t want it—you take it.”

Well, he thought it over, gave the little lady another scrutiny, decided to stay. “Well, if you ain’t specially interested, maybe she’d like to push along with a good man.” So we switched places and he addressed himself to the girl. “A-hem ... er ... bon jour, mam’selle.”

Very engaging and cheerful, I thought, very much astonished at the vibrant timbre of Ben’s love-making voice. I decided not to run away yet. This sounded interesting, and I wanted to hear just how one goes about making a trade with one of these wild women of the boulevards.

“B’jour, m’sieu.” She sounded very sweet and tender. I was really surprised, for I had expected to hear a tough voice that would shame a foghorn.

“Parley-vous Anglais?” inquired Ben.

“Une petite peu.”

“Huh?”

No answer.

“I said ‘Comment?’” insisted Ben.

She turned to him then and said, while she looked at me, “I said I speak Anglaish juste a little.”

“Now, ain’t that grand!” exclaimed Ben, expanding with relief. The mademoiselle smiled at him. “What’s on yer mind? Whatta ya got on fer to-night, this evening, this afternoon, right now?” he inquired, leaning on one foot very nonchalantly—about as nonchalantly as a cow would look leaning on one foot.

“Me? For you?” The mademoiselle laughed. “Ou la la!”

Ben laughed, too, but retorted, “Sure! Who’d you think I’m tryin’ to fix up—General Pershing?”

“Ou la la!” she exclaimed. “You want to keel me?”

Ben was getting uneasy. In an aside to me he said something about a horse collar and then returned to the attack with a forceful “Ferget it! Don’t make me burst into hysterics laughin’. What’s the dope? How about it?”

“O non, non, non,” she told him sweetly. “C’est impossible! Such a beeg strong man! Ou la la ... non, non!... But your frien’, is he int’rest?”

“Naw, he don’t like women—he’s a cherry tree,” says my sidekicker deprecatingly.

“Nevaire wis a woman? Nevaire?... Ou la la!” She stared at me as if I were some kind of a strange animal that she had heard stories about but had never seen. “Oh—I sink he ees grand.... I like heem trÉs bon.”

“He won’t go,” declared Ben, beginning to get insulted. “Ferget it now! Don’t be annoyin’ my friend. What about me?”

“Nevaire ... nevaire ...” she told him. “But I have zis frien’ ... she will like you.”

“Where is she?” demanded Ben. “Is she as good lookin’ as you?”

“Yes ... trÉs chic.... But your frien’?”

“Whatta ya say, Leony? This looks pretty good to me.”

“Nothing doing here,” I replied with a laugh.

“Aw, come on an’ oblige the young lady, won’t ya?” he pleaded.

I wished then that I had left when this intercourse began, but it was too late now. “No,” I repeated. “I don’t want to go, Ben. Can’t spare the money now anyway.”

“Aw, maybe they won’t want anything but a coupla drinks o’ vin rouge,” he argued. Then he turned to her. “Combien?”

“Oo ... vingt-cinq francs ... fine, yes?”

Ben exploded. “Twenty-five francs! Fine, hell! Say, do ya think we look like generals?”

I thought this was my way out, so I joined in the protest. “We haven’t seen that many francs for a month. You’re too high-priced for us, mam’selle.”

But the mademoiselle had allowed for a possible reduction and immediately disclosed that fact when she faced me to say, “Well, for you may-be, I make special price. Ten francs?”

“No—no—and again no!” I told her. “It’s not worth that much to me. I wouldn’t give ten francs for the best woman in the world!” I thought this was a pretty convincing bit of hard-boiledness.

“No?” she expressed her disbelief, and looked almost hungrily into my eyes. “Ah, but you do not know!... It ees worth plenty more than that!... You see ... you do not like, I geeve you ten francs, yes?”

“Holy Jemima!” exclaimed Ben. “Where the hell are we? Am I hearin’ things?”

“Ten francs,” repeated the sister of the streets.

“Now ye’re talking, baby,” Ben burst in again. “I wouldn’t give twenty-five francs to the Queen of Sheba, but ten francs ain’t so bad fer a queen like you.”

“Too much money for me,” I reiterated. “What do you do with all your money, mam’selle?”

“Oo la la ... must pay my room ... must eat, buy clothes.”

“Huh—” observed Ben, “chargin’ prices like that you must sleep in the Tuileries, eat all the time an’ not wear nothing but diamond studded gold pants.”

The mademoiselle didn’t like the sarcasm. “You make jokes wis me!” she told him. “You make jokes wis my business!” I think she began to suspect that she hadn’t made a trade.

Anyway, Ben piped up promptly and told her, “Business? Say, you ain’t no business—you’re a whole damned industry!... Now, if ya got any business sense atall, which maybe you ain’t, you’ll take my small contribution to the cause and let the next man pay the rent.”

“What zis?”

“I said, why not take me and be satisfied for once in your life. You can’t go wrong, sister: fifty thousand women can’t be wrong!”

She didn’t get him, but I did. What a boast!

All she said was, “I don’t like beeg men! I like your frien’.”

“Will ya take five francs and be happy?” Ben again.

She looked at me. “Ooo la la—I like heem ... yes.”

Ben was discouraged. “Go ahead, Leony. I’ll see you later.”

“But, my frien’ weel like you ... she likes beeg mans!”

“Combien?”

“Cinq francs ... if I esplain to her.”

Ben beamed again. “She better be good lookin’ an’ young, mam’selle, or I’ll take it outa yer hide!” Gee, the abuse these women stand! He was all ready to accompany the solicitous young thing, but I was panic-stricken and wouldn’t budge.

“Come, Leony. That’s fair enough fer a good lookin’ girl like her.”

“Naw—you go ahead, Ben. I wouldn’t spend even five francs for that!” I had to say something strong.

That did the trick. She was really insulted now. “You piker!” she spit at me. “What you want ... I should pay you anyway?... Nevaire wis a woman in your life! Bah!”

And she turned away, shook her head emphatically when Ben asked again, “How about me?” and flounced around the corner out of sight.

Ben looked after her for a moment, shook his head sadly. Then he remembered what had happened and turned to glare and growl at me. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Leony? God almighty, ya can’t expect to get anythin’ decent fer nothin’ in a place like this!”

“Aw, Ben, I don’t care anything about going with a woman like that,” I told him.

“Well, I don’t know what kind of a woman you would go with, if you don’t like that!”

“I don’t either,” I admitted frankly.

“And she liked you, too.... Gosh, but you’re an awful damn fool sometimes!”

I didn’t say anything so he continued to meditate and think aloud, ending with a huge sigh and a fatalistic, “Well, we know what this Mademoiselle from Gay Paree is anyway! After hearin’ so much about her, it’s a surprise to find her livin’ up to expectations. She was a red hot cutie, alright alright.”

We spent an uncomfortable afternoon. Ben’s appetite had been aroused and he wanted to chase after every woman we met. Two or three accosted us openly, and Ben would try half-heartedly to make a trade, but knowing that I wouldn’t go with him, he didn’t work up much zeal over any of them. None were as pretty as the first, anyway.

Ben was disgusted with me. Hardly spoke to me that night. Said he didn’t know what to think of me: “Takin’ flowers to the General an’ refusin’ to go with the prettiest mademoiselle in Paris even when she offered to return your money if ya wasn’t satisfied! Holy cripes! You act just like a woman—damned if ya don’t.”

So that’s how matters stood between us.... To-morrow I expected to see the Captain. Ben would have a little freedom to chase the elusive chickens about the boulevards, and perhaps he’d calm down a little if he had any success.